Oil Leases

Biden finally explained his reason for dropping out of the race: it was to save democracy.
He would have done more good for democracy if he had dropped out of the 2020 race.

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NORAD chased off a joint flight by the Russians and the Chinese last night.

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Oil Leases

There was an oil lease auction held by the U.S. Government of Alaskan properties. Only nine were actually sold.

First is the fact that, while 9 “oil and gas” leases were sold in that January lease sale, not a single one of them was auctioned off to an actual “oil and gas” company. Indeed, 7 of the 9 were bought by the State of Alaska itself, via its Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.

The two remaining leases were purchased by placeholder entities that are so insubstantial that neither of them - Knick Arm Services LLC and Regenerate Alaska, Inc. - even has its own website.

No real gas and oil company.

The reasons why are simple: Drilling in ANWR is too controversial, too legally difficult, too costly and there are too many other good places around the globe to explore for oil and gas. These are “oil and gas” leases in name only.

The Mortification of the Flesh

Portugal native, global restaurateur, and chef Antonio “Toni” Pais was a culinary leader and fixture in Pittsburgh for over 40 years.
Pais died on July 7 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 69.

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74% of the new jobs were government-financed and the construction jobs added were likely also due to government infrastructure programs.

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A Commentary podcast states that Trump's platform is the least family-conservative platform in the last 50 years.

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The Mortification of the Flesh

We live in a complex world. Physics describes a world of multiple levels, realities of unseen levels. Like faith-based Leftism, there are truths so real and deep that they cannot be seen--or inferred. The border is secure. The President is in good health. Modern Monetary Theory. Fossil Fuels are successfully being reduced in our progress to zero usage.

From The Guardian

At least 16 of the 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries are involved in about 50 major new oil and gas onshore and offshore projects.

Two new powerhouses, Brazil and Guyana, are expected to register two of the three largest increases in fossil fuel exports by 2035.

According to the latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), production in Latin America and the Caribbean, which stood at 8m barrels a day (mb/d) in 2022, will grow by 5.8 mb/d by 2028. With increased production in countries such as Brazil and Guyana and new projects all over the region, non-Opec countries are strengthening their foothold in the oil and gas market, playing a crucial role in the shifting geopolitics of oil and gas worldwide.

Even if the world market for fossil fuels starts shrinking by the end of the decade, countries like Brazil, Guyana, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, and Suriname are betting on oil as a source of wealth, economic growth, and development – despite its impact on the planet and thanks to the international community’s inertia in “transitioning away” from the oil era.

According to the latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), production in Latin America and the Caribbean, which stood at 8m barrels a day (mb/d) in 2022, will continue to grow above demand, adding 2 mb/d destined for export by 2030. With increased production across the region, non-Opec countries are strengthening their foothold in the oil and gas market, playing a crucial role in the shifting geopolitics of oil and gas worldwide.

Brazil and Guyana, are expected to register two of the three largest increases in fossil fuel exports by 2035. The region currently accounts for 15% of the world’s oil and gas resources and could increase its share if other historical producers transition away from the oil market, reducing their production and exports.

Brazil, which used to be a modest oil producer until the discovery of its pre-salt deposits in 2006, has become one of the top ten largest oil producers. More than 100 wells have been drilled, with production increasing from 41,000 barrels a day in 2010 to 2.2m a day last year, according to Petrobras.

Petrobras has identified new fields in the “equatorial margin” region, which stretches from Rio Grande do Norte to Amapá. It is also considering the extraction of fossil fuels at the mouth of the Amazon River, which the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) and environmental groups such as Greenpeace have spoken out against.

Petrobras plans to invest $6bn from its own budget in exploring new deposits over the next five years, adding another 10bn barrels to its reserves – almost doubling its current capacity.

“You have oil in one place. Guyana is exploring, Suriname is exploring and Trinidad and Tobago are exploring. Will you stop exploring yours?” asked Brazilian Lula at a recent event in Rio de Janeiro organised by the Future Investment Initiative Institute (FII Institute) from Saudi Arabia.

In neighboring Guyana, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, the economy has grown quickly since ExxonMobil discovered oil in 2015. GDP per capita is soaring, growing by 33% in 2023. It is expected to increase by 34% in 2024.
 
Ashni Singh, Guyana’s finance minister, says: “We’re using this period [of oil exploitation] to ensure Guyana’s long-term competitiveness, to secure long-term economic growth, and to invest in the things that matter most to improving the quality of people’s lives – and in particular, the most vulnerable.”

Meanwhile, Suriname has become a “rising star” in the oil market with some big offshore discoveries, including new deposits in Block 58 by TotalEnergies and APA, estimated at 700m barrels, with the potential to transform the economy of South America’s smallest nation.

In addition to oil giants Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and even the environmentally exemplary Costa Rica have ambitions to expand their oil and gas industry. “We must carefully assess these resources,” said Costa Rica’s president, Rodrigo Chaves. “This is a multibillion-dollar industry. And, as a nation, we should discuss its potential.”

Energy Warriors

"To the BELOVED REPUBLIC under whose equal laws I am made the peer of any man, although denied political equality by my native land, I dedicate this book with an intensity of gratitude and admiration which the native-born citizen can neither feel nor understand."--Dedication to Andrew Carnegie's Triumphant Democracy (Scribner's, 1886)

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The NHL suspended Ottawa Senators forward Shane Pinto for 41 games on Thursday, making the 22-year-old American the first modern-day hockey player banned for sports gambling.
The league said the half-season ban was for “activities relating to sports wagering” and that its investigation found no evidence Pinto bet on NHL games.

Pinto's team helmet has a gambling ad on it.

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Energy Warriors

US oil production surged to a record high of 13.2 million barrels a day last week.

The new record high also comes as oil prices have also jumped in recent months, with Brent crude up 24% since June. That's as top OPEC+ producers Saudi Arabia and Russia have curbed supplies.

The US oil rig count remains well below the 2014 peak of more than 1,600 rigs. There were just 502 active oil rigs in the US last week, representing a 69% decline from the 2014 peak.

The White House explains this rise proves their energy policy is not hostile to American oil production.

Market Insider reports, "That shows just how efficient America's energy industry has become after a period of depressed oil prices from 2014 through 2021."

But there are other explanations. Higher prices make inefficient oil production profitable and gives value to oil of lesser quality.

More CO2. Higher prices. Lower quality. That's what we all want, right?

 

The Next Step

The Next Step

Renewable energy, despite decades of green-policy investment across at least the Western world, has barely made a dent in fossil-fuel use worldwide.

Coal use remains very high and nuclear undeveloped. An attack on the use of oil might make life difficult in the West, where it is essential, but unlikely to influence those less developed countries. Turning the energy off in the West will starve the West but not save the planet.

So, if this is an existential threat, what should be done to suppress the coal and oil users who are not making sacrifices? Are they a threat to the world? And, if so, is any aggressive action against them justified? If so, in such a crisis, what is not justified?

Does Capitalism Have a Philosophy?

Does Capitalism Have a Philosophy?

I heard an interview with a guy pushing his book on the intermingling of woke and business. I can't verify this --and I have not read the book--but these points are fascinating.

The financial advisors of BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard control investment funds amounting to about $20 Trillion. (The GDP of the U.S. in 2020 was about $20 Trillion, the debt a bit more.) These three companies, using American investor dollars, have begun to espouse positions--and make demands on companies they influence to support those positions--that look to be in opposition to the best interests of both their clients and the nation.

Climate activist hedge fund Engine No. 1 recently waged a proxy war to put insurgent directors on Exxon’s board. Reuters described it as “the first major shareholder contest to make climate change the leading issue for choosing directors.” Engine No. 1 was supported by BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Global Advisors, which voted their combined 21% of Exxon’s shares in favor of two insurgent directors who won election to Exxon’s board. BlackRock supported a third insurgent who was also elected.

These new members demanded--and got--a decrease in oil drilling and refining--and Exxon's output dropped. The leases they surrendered were picked up by.....PetroChina. a BlackRock client.

Biden, Psaki, and Friedman

 

 Biden, Psaki, and Friedman

Biden and Psaki have been chanting that there is nothing holding back the oil companies from drilling on lands with 9100 permits and that there are no government pressures against such drilling. This falls far short of saying they encourage drilling but such clear mendacity is hard to take, even in American politics. Uncertainty of the regulatory atmosphere--even in this energy wartime and scarcity--will be enough to discourage production. Getting access permits, workers, supply line limits, snail darters--these are just the obvious pressures provided by people who are more devoted to a scientific theory than the nation and people they are responsible for. Here is just a hint of their hostility to domestic production:

https://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2022/01/net-zero-banking-alliance.html

This all stems from a belief of many in the government that oil is bad for us, a thesis raised by climate modeling and aggressively argued and legislated by the current party in power. I think that is a legitimate--but difficult--scientific question. My concern is that this thesis is at least debatable and, if true, has no immediate technical solution whereas the importance of our national energy integrity is immediate and has an immediate, cheap, and convenient solution.

There's a big difference between "Go ahead and drill" and "We will help you go ahead and drill." Biden may not understand that. But Psaki does. When your job requires relentless mendacity, it's time to reconsider your job.

A recent question about oil prices included this article by Friedman from the NYT:
https://www.standardspeaker.com/lies-and-gas-prices/article_43355e03-7888-5451-af4e-11f5b3b6123c.html

I think this is a bit of a straw man argument. This was my response:

I don't have much of an argument against this and Krugman is a hell of a lot smarter than I am. But this is not actually what I was saying. Of course, commodity markets are as global as allowed. And of course, there are a lot of national and international factors. But my points are these. One, inflation is a function of the availability of the commodity and the currency exchanged for it. The deficit spending and the accommodating Fed have created the setting for inflation. In fairness, there are smart people who don't believe that but I do. Increasing availability cheapens. This is not a partisan position; democrats and republicans are both guilty. Two, Obama and Biden both have an apocalyptic vision for the earth with an agent different from Sunday morning pulpit-hammering preachers but no less heartfelt. They are devoted to saving the earth from this apocalypse and want to eliminate fossil fuels to do it. “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
People don't believe politicians, but I believe these guys. My concern is that I think the West has an immediate threat from predatory enemies--see Ukraine--and the safety of the West will depend, to some degree, upon the integrity of its energy supply. That will not be windmills. Now some, like Kerry, think that these military risks are less than the risk of the apocalypse--as such people will, and probably should. I don't.

We will not remember the Coronavirus in a month. But these people, guided by a model, shut down the economy of the Western world for eighteen months to save us. They are absolutely willing to do the same thing with their apocalyptic vision of the environment. My belief is that would be a humanitarian, strategic and military disaster. And they are being dishonest in their decision-making and their communication of it.

 

Oil and Theory

 

Oil and Theory

Joe Biden said yesterday that oil prices were down 14%. And, on the international front, Nancy Pelosi brought good wishes to Zelensky from Billy Jean King. We are structuring a Middle East peace program around Iran. We are taking on debt to fight inflation. These are our leaders. Parody is coming front and center.

Our management of energy in the near future will be a touchstone of the quality and honesty of the country's leadership. And maybe of the reliability of the democratic system.

We have decided not to buy Russian oil. The announcement of this completely symbolic act was done without the officials wearing vestments. We can now return to the TV non-discussion over no-fly zones.

We have turned down our energy production as we financed the Russian mugging of Ukraine through our buying Russian oil, we are negotiating--with the help of the Russians!--with Iran(!) so we can buy their oil, using the promise of financing Iran's nuclear ambitions as an eager partner of the Middle East suicide pact, and we have opened negotiations with Venezuela--Venezuela(!)--for their oil. And, of course, we rely upon the kindness of the Saudis.

None of this stands the most superficial scrutiny.

The current mantra in the White House vihara is that American use of Russian oil, however abhorrent, depends upon the tendencies and preferences of the Europeans, the EU and NATO. So, as always, the magician distracts.

The point is not the use of Russian oil. It is only 4% of our consumption. And, if we stopped it, that would make oil more available to the Europeans. The essential point is American production, not American consumption. Our own production could make our own demands independent of foreign production, a concern we have with all of our other essential products--semiconductors, rare earths, steel--whether for convenience or security. 

America's economic and military future will depend on scarcity. Only oil, seemingly, is exempt from the discussion of the importance of having domestic production as a solution to possible scarcity and security risk. 

If Trump had allowed such a vulnerability through overt policy, he would have been impeached.

Can Liberty Survive Shallowness?

So, now Covid does not have a federal solution? And diagnosis may not be as important as illness? And maybe testing should be targeted? What's next, a scientific approach?

Can Liberty Survive Shallowness?

Climate activist hedge fund Engine No. 1 recently waged a proxy war to put insurgent directors on Exxon’s board. Reuters described it as “the first major shareholder contest to make climate change the leading issue for choosing directors.” Engine No. 1 gained the support of BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Global Advisors, which voted their combined 21% of Exxon’s shares in favor of two insurgent directors who won election to Exxon’s board. BlackRock supported a third insurgent who was also elected.

The Employees Retirement System of Texas and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas also voted in favor of the three successful insurgent director nominees and a shareholder proposal requiring a report on corporate climate lobbying aligned with the Paris agreement, which passed.

Now what? Is Exxon supposed to abandon its projects in the middle of an energy shortage and start a national coffee chain?

So the activists are in favor of higher gas prices, contraction of the petroleum-based economy, with an inevitable decline in wellbeing and livelihood. And apparently, those corporations who have ridden the free trade train for generations are not committed to it when stressed.

The average guy has fewer and fewer friends.

Cutting Edge Petroleum

 

                                   Cutting Edge Petroleum

Oil is the basic energy source for emerging economies. But the West is pretty much developed so they are rising above oil. As for the developing economies, "Let them drive Teslas!" 

 Department of Energy forecasts that fossil fuels will still be the dominant energy source, providing 77% of our energy needs in 2050. Even after billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy, all renewables together (including hydroelectric power, biomass, solar, and wind) last year provided only 9.9% of America’s energy, which was just slightly greater than the 9.3% share that renewables provided 72 years ago in 1949 – that’s not a lot of progress for the politically popular but very expensive renewables.  Politically popular solar and wind, those two energy sources combined provided only 4.4% of America’s energy in 2020 – an almost insignificant amount, especially solar’s contribution of only 1.3% and, in 2050, all renewables together are forecasted to provide only 17.5% of our nation’s energy, compared to the fossil fuel share of 76.7%.

The Oil War

                                      The Oil War



Lost in the Coronavirus explosion is the oil war. A month ago, Brent crude was trading at $57.67 per barrel. It had dropped to $34.36 by Monday, March 9. Trump’s announcement that the government would buy oil for the Strategic Oil Reserve propped up the price to $35.44, but since then prices have collapsed further. Tuesday, Brent crude fell to $30.41, and on Wednesday it was trading near $26. And West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude, which usually goes for less than Brent, is hovering around $20.

The Russians wouldn’t agree to limit oil production and prop up oil prices because they want to put American shale producers out of business, and the Saudis at the end of the day decided to join the Russians. These are guys we have supported countless times in their squabbles and support now and they are partnering with sworn enemies of this country. They might sound like they’re feuding, but both of them, as well as Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, the National Iranian Oil Company, Petrobras, and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, ultimately want exactly the same thing, which is to get rid of as many American producers as possible. 

These will be challenging times, but clarifying. Both liberal and conservative philosophies will be compromised. Things will change. But, in the oil problem, an old adage may still apply: A competitor is an opponent who competes by the same rules, an opponent who competes with different rules is an enemy.

Energy Numbers

It is a cruel mortification, searching for what is instructive in the history of past times, to find that the exploits of conquerors who have desolated the earth, and the freaks of tyrants who have rendered nations unhappy, are recorded with minute and often disgusting accuracy, while the discovery of useful arts, and the progress of the most beneficial branches of commerce, are passed over in silence, and suffered to sink into oblivion.--John Kenyon 

On our way back today.

The Kenyon quote is really important and rarely heard. How many arrogant warlords, naive optimists, dreamy democratic visionaries, and simple murderous psychopaths have combined to pile the bodies of average, struggling, working people up as bulwarks and breastworks in their endless battles for self-gratification. (See Middle East)


Eutrapely : noun: Liveliness and ease of conversation. ETYMOLOGY: From Greek (pleasantness in conversation), from eu- (well) + trapely (to turn). Earliest documented use: 1596. It was one of Aristotle’s dozen virtues.

              Energy Numbers

From the June 2018 BP Statistical Review of Global Energy (67th edition) here are some details on C02 emissions in 2017:

1. Global CO₂ emissions from energy in 2017 grew by 1.6% (and 426.4 million tons), rebounding from the stagnant volumes during 2014-2016, and faster than the 10-year average of 1.3%.

2. Declines in CO2 emissions in 2017 were led by the US (-0.5% and 42 million tons). This is the ninth time in this century that the US has had the largest decline in emissions in the world. This also was the third consecutive year that emissions in the US declined, though the fall was the smallest over the last three years. Must be The Paris Accords.

3. Carbon emissions from energy use from the US are the lowest since 1992, the year that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into existence. The next largest decline was in Ukraine (-10.1% and 28.1 tons).

4. The largest increase in carbon emissions in 2017 came from China (1.6% and 119 tons), a reversal from the past three years when the largest increases in emissions came from India. China’s emissions in 2017 were 0.3% higher than the previous peak in 2014. China has had the world’s largest increments in carbon emission every year this century except in four years – 2000 and between 2014-16. The next highest increment came from India where emissions rose by 4.4% (93.2 million tons), though lower than its 10-year average (6% p.a.).

5. Together, China and India accounted for nearly half (212.2 million tons) of the increase in global carbon emissions (426.4 million tons). EU emissions were also up (1.5% and 42.4 million tons) with just Spain accounting for 44% of the increase in EU emissions. Among other EU members, UK and Denmark reported the lowest carbon emissions in their history.

Perry: For that impressive “greening” of America, we can thank the underground oceans of America’s natural gas that are now accessible because of the revolutionary, advanced drilling and extraction technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal/directional drilling, and are increasingly displacing coal for the nation’s electricity generation.

Gas Charts

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. ~mathematician Blaise Pascal, 1670


A day behind.                       

Between now and 2050, CO2 emissions are projected to decrease by 4% in the OECD countries and increase by 36% in the non-OECD countries. To combat rising CO2, perhaps Greta Thunberg is lecturing the wrong people.

Where did the Russian oligarchs come from? Bill Bowder has some explanations in his book Red Notice. Voucher privatization was supposed to be a system in which every Russian citizen—all 150 million—would receive a privatization certificate exchangeable at public auctions for stock in one of the new companies. It turned into a scramble among insiders to “acquire” these vouchers by any means. This included, according to Browder, the hedge fund manager and the largest foreign investor in Russia at the time, the closure of regional airports to prevent employees and rival elites from getting to the auctions in Moscow. With competition suppressed, the value of each voucher did not exceed $20. As Mr. Browder notes: “Since these vouchers were exchangeable for roughly 30 percent of the shares of all Russian companies, this meant that the valuation of the entire Russian economy was only $10 billion! That was one-sixth the value of Wal-Mart!” 

This is how the oligarchs were born.

Kunstler, (from W.E.): "A trial ..[impeachment].. would be a rich spectacle for sure after subjecting the nation to three years of malicious, perfidious sedition. But other gusts of rumor intimate that senators on the Republican side would prefer to not open any cans of Ukrainian worms in a trial, since money laundered through the Ukrainian oligarch mills may have found its way into their pockets as well. Who knows…?"

On this day in 1688, William of Orange makes a triumphant march into London as James II flees.

                                Gas Charts

Thanks to their enterprising innovations in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, domestic petroleum output has tripled over the past decade to more than 12 million barrels per day, while supplies of natural gas have surged 60% to a daily 113 billion cubic feet. The biggest overall beneficiaries have been everyday Americans—who now pay $100 billion less per year for fossil fuels. And because gas burns far cleaner than coal (which has lost a third of its market share), our national carbon dioxide emissions have dropped 15% from the 2007 peak. 

Rare Elements and Rare Logic

I don't have the passion. I'll follow the gorilla.--the fabulous Laura Linney in "Congo"


Chris gave a  presentation to the big bosses yesterday.
Mom could not get out of Charlottesville and stayed overnight. She'll get in today.
Murphy got in a fight yesterday with another Glen, a lady.
Watching GoT reruns.
Liz picked Va in her office pool.

“Some on Mueller's Team Say Report Was More Damaging Than Barr Revealed.” This was a headline in the NYT. So someone anonymously leaks the second-hand rumor of “damaging” information, which in a court of law was not proof of criminality. And the NYT prints that second-hand rumor in a headline.

"Do racists care whether someone black is married or unmarried? If not, then why do married blacks escape poverty so much more often than other blacks, if racism is the main reason for black poverty?"--Sowell

Alan Turing, the British mathematician best known for his work on code-breaking and artificial intelligence, wanted to understand the underlying mechanism that produces natural patterns. He proposed that patterns such as spots form as a result of the interactions between two chemicals that spread throughout a system much like gas atoms in a box do, with one crucial difference. Instead of diffusing evenly like a gas, the chemicals, which Turing called “morphogens,” diffuse at different rates. One serves as an activator to express a unique characteristic, like a tiger’s stripe, and the other acts as an inhibitor, kicking in periodically to shut down the activator’s expression. This idea is making a comeback.


This was the most visited older post this last week:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2012/05/first-line-of-iliad.html



On this day in 1865 Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox.


                                       Rare Elements and Rare Logic


The Japanese call rare earth elements “the seeds of technology.”  The U.S. Department of Energy calls them “technology metals.”  They are integral to everything from the miniaturization of electronics, to the enabling of green energy and medical technologies, to supporting a myriad of essential telecommunications and defense systems.  They have become irreplaceable to our world of technology owing to their unique magnetic, phosphorescent, and catalytic properties.

Rare earth elements are a set of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, specifically the fifteen lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium. Scandium and yttrium are considered rare earth elements since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties. 
  



While named rare earths, they are relatively abundant in the Earth's crust.  What is unusual--and difficult--is to find them in quantities significant enough to support economic mineral development.  

By 2000, China accounted for more than 95% of world rare earth production. 




According to the 2013 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the National Intelligence Office, rare earths are “essential to civilian and military technologies and to the 21st-century global economy, including green technologies (e.g., wind turbines and advanced battery systems) and advanced defense systems.”  


"Green technologies." 


So our efforts to move from fossil fuel, which we have so much of that we export it, to alternative energies would mean switching us from energy independence to complete dependence upon a nation and culture that sees us as their philosophical and economic enemy.


Does that sound reasonable to anyone?

Trade, Oil Production

According to a January 2018 report by the Pew Research Center, “in the four decades since the current system for budgeting and spending tax dollars has been in effect, Congress has managed to pass all its required appropriations measures on time only four times: in fiscal 1977 (the first full fiscal year under the current system), 1989, 1995 and 1997.”
So the Congress seems to be unable to perform its basic functions, functions essential to the running of the State. So, why should we have confidence they can improve complicated things?

In 2017, the value of international U.S. exports of services amounted to 780.8 billion U.S. dollars.  In 2017, U.S. exports amounted to 1.55 trillion U.S. dollars. So the  service-sector outputs account for nearly 80 percent of U.S. GDP and 34 percent of U.S. exports.

Some charts:

The record is clear that when America’s total trade is increased, American jobs have also increased, and when our total trade has declined, so have the number of jobs


Two startling charts on the growth of U.S. oil production:

Oil, Batteries and Weighty Subjects‏

"We can break our dependence on oil…and become the first country to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.” President Obama said this in his January 2011 State of the Union address. But right now there are  less than 180,000 plug-ins on U.S. roads today. ( Worldwide, there are only 400,000.) Less than 70,000 Leafs, 71,00 Volts. And Fisker is bankrupt.

Treason? Gridlock?

All the hope and subsidies in the world cannot overcome the physics of energy density: Hydrocarbons--oil--store 40X the energy pound for pound than does the electrochemistry of batteries. The engine-battery system of a Leaf is 1000 pounds more than the engine+gas tank of a Mustang. And the Mustang can run all day.

Excess of XL

The President has vetoed the authorization of the Keystone XL pipeline. The project would build a pipe system from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to refiners on the Gulf coast. It would create 40,000 jobs in construction and pipe-fitting over the two years it would take to finish it. Unions strongly backed the Keystone XL project, while environmentalists strongly opposed it. It had bipartisan support in the Congress and in the nation. A CNN poll in January showed that 57 percent of Americans wanted it approved, while only 28 percent opposed it. The bill had majority or double-digit plurality support in almost every demographic – age, region, gender, income, education. Only among Democrats and self-described liberals did opposition exceed support, and in those cases only by single digits. For some reason the State Department saw fit to evaluate the environmental impact of the pipeline--twice--and found that the pipeline project would be neutral on climate change and would not have a serious impact on the environment.
The truth of the matter is that this is a pretty innocuous thing but nothing is small to the ideologue.

Fossile Fuel (Energy Week)

Cheap energy is the current whipping boy. But some understanding of it must be conceded as well. 

Thomas Newcomen in 1712 produced the most important single technological advance of the industrial age. He invented a crude steam engine that ran on coal. It was by most subsequent standards terribly inefficient but it was efficient enough to allow British miners to work in coal mines; it was able to pump the mines dry so the miners could work safely. Thus began the incredible modern industrial age, a machine that enabled men to produce more energy than the machine needed.

By every means this improved the lives of men. The famous wealth chart is the most dramatic. The wealth of the Western man was virtually flat through history; wealth was transferred, not developed, by theft or, worse, war. Except for those rare episodes--like the Spanish stumbling on South American gold, the wealth of the West was stagnant through history. Until Newcomen. Then the wealth curve became a hockey stick.

And everything changed. We no longer froze in the dark, died of heat prostration or starved. Machines cut lumber for good houses. Irrigation and fertilizer nourished increasing crops. Relief efforts arrived in hours or days, not months or years. 

Climate-related deaths are down 98 percent over the last 80 years. Affordable and abundant energy is the cornerstone of human progress. And fossil fuels are the most affordable and abundant — alternative energy sources are either too expensive, too difficult to access or simply inefficient. There may be trouble now with fossil fuels. It may hide some significant downsides. But they can not be replaced at their availability or cost. That gap must be considered. And it is the third World, those trying to take advantage of the available and cheap energy sources that the West has enjoyed for the last two centuries, that will suffer most from its decline.

Oil Below $60

Oil has fallen below $60 a barrel for the first time in more than five years – a fall of 44 per cent since June. That should benefit the average guy but there will be a fallout that might ensnare him because nothing in an economy can be isolated. For example, high yield bonds linked to oil companies are linked to oil prices, so they may be imperiled. The falling prices could damage the North Sea, marginal drillers and fledgling fracking industries.
Green energy technologies such as solar and wind had been banking on sharp increases in fossil fuel prices to make them increasingly competitive and help to attract the huge amount of investment required to build renewable power plants.
There are clear advantages to most with oil cheaper. With oil prices low, there will be a great improvement in travel and home energy costs, manufacturing costs and agricultural overhead.  
But where will these savings go? Those savings will likely be diverted into the pet projects of the crony capitalists, their government employees and their supportive ideologues. As the gap between the cost of fossil fuel power and renewable power gets bigger, investments in these areas will be less attractive. So extra subsidies will be necessary. Those subsidies will probably come from households in the form of higher energy bills. So the cost of energy will go down but we average guys will not see it.

Suez

The Suez canal is an artificial waterway in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean and the Red Seas. It is single lane with several lie-by areas to pass. There are no locks and seawater flows freely in the canal.
It was built for modern use from 1859 to 1869 to allow ship movement between Asia and Europe without navigating around Africa and has undergone several enhancements. The Canal is now 120.11 miles long, 673 feet wide and 79 feet deep. It serves the hugely oil-rich areas of the Red Sea and allows the easier and safer trade of petroleum products to Europe and west.

While a gigantic engineering project by La Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez (Universal Company of the Maritime Suez Canal) it was, remarkably, a rather ancient idea. The first canal between the Nile River delta and the Red Sea was excavated about the 13th century BC, possibly at the command of either Seti I or Ramses II. Its condition went through various maintenance efforts over the years but was finally abandoned in the 800's A.D.

The modern Suez construction company was originally a private Egyptian concern, its stock owned chiefly by French and Egyptian interests. In 1875 the British government purchased Egypt's shares. The original treaty guaranteed the Canal would be accessible to all nations but, after 1948, it was closed to Israel.

In 1956, after some disagreements with Egypt over their relationship with Russia, the U.S. and Britain withdrew financial support of the Aswan Dam project, Egyptian President-for-life Nasser took the Canal over with plans of using the Canal's receipts to build the dam. Israel invaded Egypt and the French and English invaded the Canal to keep it open. The Egyptians scuttled 40 ships in the canal to block it. Eventually the Canal was reopened and ownership transferred to Egypt.

When the Mediocre Rise to the Occasion

A big problem emerging in the Middle East was met with an almost comic American response.

The Daily Mail reports the Saudis plan to cut back on diplomatic relations with the U.S. as Saudi Arabia is concerned about signs of a nascent reconciliation between Washington and Tehran, their religious enemy.

Saudi Arabia's current intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan is vowing that the kingdom will make a 'major shift' in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday. Trouble has been brewing since the U.S. had failed to back Saudi support for Bahrain when it crushed an anti-government revolt in 2011.

'Prince Bandar told diplomats that he plans to limit interaction with the U.S.,' the source said.

Saudi Arabia signaled its displeasure over Obama's foreign policy last week when it rejected a coveted two-year term on the U.N. Security Council in a display of anger over the failure of the international community to end the war in Syria and act on other Middle East issues. Their disrespect for the U.N. aside, the Security Chair is a plum.

In Washington another senior Saudi prince --and the former intelligence chief--criticized Obama's Middle East policies, accusing him of 'dithering' on Syria and Israeli-Palestinian peace.
"The current charade of international control over Bashar's chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly perfidious. And designed not only to give Mr. Obama an opportunity to back down (from military strikes), but also to help Assad to butcher his people," said Prince Turki, a member of the Saudi royal family and former director of Saudi intelligence.

The Mail's "source" said the changes in relations between the two countries would include "arms purchases and oil sales." Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, invests much of its earnings back into U.S. assets. Most of the Saudi central bank's net foreign assets of $690 billion are thought to be denominated in dollars, much of them in U.S. Treasury bonds.

This difficulty involving complex Sunni-Shi'ite conflicts, oil, international commerce (remember the oil embargo of the '70s?) in the Middle East hotbed was met with a typical American laser response: Representative Chris Van Hollen, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives' Democratic leadership and a man close to Obama on domestic issues, told Reuters, "And the Saudis should start by stopping their funding of the al Qaeda-related groups in Syria. In addition to the fact that it's a country that doesn't allow women to drive."

Doesn't allow women to drive?